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The Rockridge District of Oakland is an oasis. National notions of what Oakland is are sometimes tilted to the sensationalist dark side that the media dishes out copiously, because there is always an audience for the dark. It is true that there are serious problems the city has to face on a daily basis, but there are also serious histories and joys and sights that are at the core of what Oakland really is. A few years back I started a photo collection to fight back the thugs-gone-wild image of Oakland that permeates through the country and sadly blurs the reality of this thriving city. This is Oakland Too.
I worked and loved working in Oakland’s Rockridge neighborhood, bordering Berkeley, a couple of years ago for a couple of years. I remember that I would park bright “Tweety” in the pretty residential streets that still have the luxurious, non-2-hour-parking spots. Tweety has become more that just transportation. Long gone are the memories of me arguing with a furrowed brow and down-turned mouth of skepticism, after going through the four or so Craigslist links my husband had offered up, the GTI being the best option for our new car: “Is that really the color?!?”
Tweety, and its taxi-yellowness, has grown on me so much – to a deep fondness – particularly after one early spring morning when I parked on 62nd right at the corner with Hillegass, that perfect shady spot with a car in front of me and the red zone behind me granting the bonus of not having to parallel park, just glide in. I was getting out of the car and a little girl on her dad’s shoulders, most likely on the early morning walk to the local preschool on College Av, excitedly exclaimed, “Look at that yellow car, daddy!” I smiled and got my things, meeped the car locked, and started making my way up the street behind them a few paces on my regular path to work. The whole way I tried not to overtake them as she droned, “Quack, quack, quack….” all the way to the large intersection of Claremont. Four-year-old thinks the car is duckling yellow. It was so sweet. Tweety was already its name based on the color, and Tweety is a bird not a duck, but you get the gist, both in the avian family. So now, whenever I see the car I think of her and the “quack, quack.”
Some days I would ride my bicycle to work, the 18 minutes flat that it would take door-to-door, counting stoplights and technical/wardrobe malfunctions, such as needing to do something about my right pant leg so that it wouldn’t rub against the gears. I forgot about that, all these years without riding, but in the back of my consciousness I now linked all those instances of morning commuters with the Velcro straps around only their right leg. It is funny when a realization comes back to you in a cumulative stroke: Oh, right. The pant leg. I have always known that Berkeley is on a gentle grade up toward the east. In the mornings, carrying lunch, a bike lock, and a change of shoes in my backpack, that grade matters! I never fully got into the groove of the bike-to-work days. I probably needed to leave much earlier so that time and speed were not the main oppressors, and I could enjoy what the moment really was – a bike ride through the beautiful residential neighborhoods with large, mature trees and vegetation blooming all around.
On drive-to-work days, however, I did give myself the chance to behold and ponder on my surroundings once I parked and walked the few blocks. People’s yards in The Rockridge are gorgeous and walking is the perfect pace to enjoy them. Plum trees that had delicate pink blossoms in March now show their passionate, deep Bordeaux leaves shouting their uniqueness to the Universe. Rose bushes are meticulously manicured into 5-foot trees with a single trunk and a round top of buds. How is this achieved? They stand in some Victorian-era perfection – large lollipops of color. Another yard has a sculptured hedge in between two houses. Beyond the quick glance – and it took me a couple of times to notice – is a long bulbous body, a round head, and two antennae….It is a caterpillar! Once I noticed, I could not take my eyes off of it. The hedge is a nice Kelly green, perfect for the task. It reminds me of my daughter’s baby book “The Hungry Caterpillar.”
People are workin' it with their yards. Rosemary and lavender are everywhere. Two kinds of lavender that I see all the time: one of gray-green foliage and light purple flowers, and the one with the greener arched leaves with bright purple flower spears that even from a distance look so soft to the touch. I tend to have a little yard-envy for fractions of seconds at a time but recover quickly into “what can be learned from their gardening methods?” mode, to keep myself motivated. In my domain, there is my nemesis: Crab grass. Two words. People always say that if there is a major cataclysm to end all, the cockroaches will survive. The roaches and the crab grass, I believe.
My Rockridge Mornings walks would lead me from the lull of gardeny and thoughtful and sunny and soft things to, all of a sudden, the shock of hitting the bustle of noise and cars of the big intersection at College and Claremont. It is a wide area, complicated into a six-pointed star of traffic and stop lights. On the left, the boxy, demure BofA building from the 70s in its obligatory, tilt-up concrete ugliness; on the right some hipster noodle place with blueish iridescent mosaic counters: too cool and date-night-appropriate to have ever tempted me to go in during my alone-with-the-SF Weekly lunchtimes.
The paved Medusa head of Claremont and College would wake me up from the morning space out. That light seems to take forever. Just when you think it is your turn, one traffic feeder stops, but now it’s time for the left turns only line of cars. The crosswalk has an audio assistance speaker. It beeps, beeps, beeps to fully make the long “Don’t Walk” wait even more aggravating. There they mock, the letters in red, persistent and unyielding. Then finally it directs pedestrians to go. By then there are a handful of people waiting at the corner, feeling the same awkwardness as elevator riders with disproportionate focus on the progress of the floor level display.
For the longest time I couldn’t quite make out the pre-recorded male voice coming from the speaker and muddled by the sound of the wheels rolling through the roadways. Sounds to me like: “Walk like a dog across Claremont Avenue.” Walk like a dog across Claremont Avenue. I told a coworker once, and I think I ruined him forever because he said that afterwards it was all he could hear at that intersection. I was so amused by my interpretation, that I didn’t bother to listen for what it really said for weeks. Of course, now I know that it says, “Walk sign is on, across Claremont Avenue.’ Still – I think we could all use a little letting go, and try to emulate dogs more often. So…walk, run, sleep, and most definitely, greet loved ones like a dog.
This is Oakland Too - a flickr collection
www.flickr.com/photos/22996143@N06/sets/72157626615849862/
Atomic Dog - George Clinton
www.youtube.com/watch?v=LMVZ36VA0wg
I worked and loved working in Oakland’s Rockridge neighborhood, bordering Berkeley, a couple of years ago for a couple of years. I remember that I would park bright “Tweety” in the pretty residential streets that still have the luxurious, non-2-hour-parking spots. Tweety has become more that just transportation. Long gone are the memories of me arguing with a furrowed brow and down-turned mouth of skepticism, after going through the four or so Craigslist links my husband had offered up, the GTI being the best option for our new car: “Is that really the color?!?”
Tweety, and its taxi-yellowness, has grown on me so much – to a deep fondness – particularly after one early spring morning when I parked on 62nd right at the corner with Hillegass, that perfect shady spot with a car in front of me and the red zone behind me granting the bonus of not having to parallel park, just glide in. I was getting out of the car and a little girl on her dad’s shoulders, most likely on the early morning walk to the local preschool on College Av, excitedly exclaimed, “Look at that yellow car, daddy!” I smiled and got my things, meeped the car locked, and started making my way up the street behind them a few paces on my regular path to work. The whole way I tried not to overtake them as she droned, “Quack, quack, quack….” all the way to the large intersection of Claremont. Four-year-old thinks the car is duckling yellow. It was so sweet. Tweety was already its name based on the color, and Tweety is a bird not a duck, but you get the gist, both in the avian family. So now, whenever I see the car I think of her and the “quack, quack.”
Some days I would ride my bicycle to work, the 18 minutes flat that it would take door-to-door, counting stoplights and technical/wardrobe malfunctions, such as needing to do something about my right pant leg so that it wouldn’t rub against the gears. I forgot about that, all these years without riding, but in the back of my consciousness I now linked all those instances of morning commuters with the Velcro straps around only their right leg. It is funny when a realization comes back to you in a cumulative stroke: Oh, right. The pant leg. I have always known that Berkeley is on a gentle grade up toward the east. In the mornings, carrying lunch, a bike lock, and a change of shoes in my backpack, that grade matters! I never fully got into the groove of the bike-to-work days. I probably needed to leave much earlier so that time and speed were not the main oppressors, and I could enjoy what the moment really was – a bike ride through the beautiful residential neighborhoods with large, mature trees and vegetation blooming all around.
On drive-to-work days, however, I did give myself the chance to behold and ponder on my surroundings once I parked and walked the few blocks. People’s yards in The Rockridge are gorgeous and walking is the perfect pace to enjoy them. Plum trees that had delicate pink blossoms in March now show their passionate, deep Bordeaux leaves shouting their uniqueness to the Universe. Rose bushes are meticulously manicured into 5-foot trees with a single trunk and a round top of buds. How is this achieved? They stand in some Victorian-era perfection – large lollipops of color. Another yard has a sculptured hedge in between two houses. Beyond the quick glance – and it took me a couple of times to notice – is a long bulbous body, a round head, and two antennae….It is a caterpillar! Once I noticed, I could not take my eyes off of it. The hedge is a nice Kelly green, perfect for the task. It reminds me of my daughter’s baby book “The Hungry Caterpillar.”
People are workin' it with their yards. Rosemary and lavender are everywhere. Two kinds of lavender that I see all the time: one of gray-green foliage and light purple flowers, and the one with the greener arched leaves with bright purple flower spears that even from a distance look so soft to the touch. I tend to have a little yard-envy for fractions of seconds at a time but recover quickly into “what can be learned from their gardening methods?” mode, to keep myself motivated. In my domain, there is my nemesis: Crab grass. Two words. People always say that if there is a major cataclysm to end all, the cockroaches will survive. The roaches and the crab grass, I believe.
My Rockridge Mornings walks would lead me from the lull of gardeny and thoughtful and sunny and soft things to, all of a sudden, the shock of hitting the bustle of noise and cars of the big intersection at College and Claremont. It is a wide area, complicated into a six-pointed star of traffic and stop lights. On the left, the boxy, demure BofA building from the 70s in its obligatory, tilt-up concrete ugliness; on the right some hipster noodle place with blueish iridescent mosaic counters: too cool and date-night-appropriate to have ever tempted me to go in during my alone-with-the-SF Weekly lunchtimes.
The paved Medusa head of Claremont and College would wake me up from the morning space out. That light seems to take forever. Just when you think it is your turn, one traffic feeder stops, but now it’s time for the left turns only line of cars. The crosswalk has an audio assistance speaker. It beeps, beeps, beeps to fully make the long “Don’t Walk” wait even more aggravating. There they mock, the letters in red, persistent and unyielding. Then finally it directs pedestrians to go. By then there are a handful of people waiting at the corner, feeling the same awkwardness as elevator riders with disproportionate focus on the progress of the floor level display.
For the longest time I couldn’t quite make out the pre-recorded male voice coming from the speaker and muddled by the sound of the wheels rolling through the roadways. Sounds to me like: “Walk like a dog across Claremont Avenue.” Walk like a dog across Claremont Avenue. I told a coworker once, and I think I ruined him forever because he said that afterwards it was all he could hear at that intersection. I was so amused by my interpretation, that I didn’t bother to listen for what it really said for weeks. Of course, now I know that it says, “Walk sign is on, across Claremont Avenue.’ Still – I think we could all use a little letting go, and try to emulate dogs more often. So…walk, run, sleep, and most definitely, greet loved ones like a dog.
This is Oakland Too - a flickr collection
www.flickr.com/photos/22996143@N06/sets/72157626615849862/
Atomic Dog - George Clinton
www.youtube.com/watch?v=LMVZ36VA0wg